We recently put together our list of the best Mac apps, but college students need different tools. If you snagged a shiny new Mac with one of those student discounts, here are the apps to load it up with before you hit that first class.

We all take notes a little differently, so picking the best notes really depends on your style. Evernote and OneNote are best for people who like to record and organize everything, including audio, images, and text. Keep’s best for people who like to do the same, but prefer to keep their notes relatively short. Otherwise, there’s Simplenote, which is best for people who only take text-based notes. All four apps are great, so it really just depends on what type of notes you prefer to take.

Wunderlist has long been our go-to to-do app on Mac. What we really like about Wunderlist as a to-do app is that it syncs across multiple devices, and it’s incredibly easy to use. If you want to keep it simple, you can, but if you want to create complicated task lists for various classes, you can do that as well. Another handy feature for students is the ability to share your task lists with others. This should help make group projects less of a crapshoot.

Keeping track of all your assignments, social activities, and everything else is a job in itself. iStudiez Pro makes a little easier by being both a planner and a to-do list, so you can easily track your assignments and other due dates. Better still, you can also track your GPA from within the app, so you always know where you’re at. It’s $9.99, which is a bit pricey, but you can check out the lite version for free to see if it works for you.

Not long ago, students were stuck with Microsoft Office for their office suite, but now that Google Docs has offline editing it’s a perfect replacement to Office for most students. The best part is the fact that it’s free, but it also has pretty much everything you need: spreadsheets, presentations, and a document editor. It also stores you documents in the cloud so you never to worry about the horrible just-lost-my-paper panic.

While we generally prefer Google Docs for creating and editing your own documents, that doesn’t mean everyone else does. Just to be safe, it’s not bad to have an Office suite on your computer, and LibreOffice is nice to have around in case you can’t access Google Docs. It’s also helpful for when you need advanced formatting options for certain types of assignments. However, while Microsoft Office on the Mac is always lagging a bit behind its Windows counterparts, it’s still a necessary evil for college life. Many professors will require Office, and if you’re working in group projects its always best to use the same software. Good news though, your campus store usually has a discounted version of Office on hand.

We mention Dropbox in our annual Lifehacker Packs, but it’s worth noting again for students. Not only is Dropbox a handy place to store all your files, it can also be a lifesaver when you realize you forgot to bring in an assignment. Simply pop into Dropbox, and email the link directly to your professor from any computer.

Chrome’s a great choice for students because it syncs all your settings, browser history, and your extensions. This makes it easy to keep your school laptop synced up with your desktop at home and your browser on your smartphone. Power users can get a lot of Chrome, so when you’re not busy writing papers, you’ll have plenty more to do. However, if you’re running off a battery on your laptop, skip Chrome and stick to Safari for a battery life boost.

Instead of wasting your money on SMS messages for your phone, an easy way to save a little cash in school is to use an instant messaging client. The bonus is that if you’re using it on your computer your professor probably won’t even realize you’re not paying attention.

Whether you just miss your parents, or you want a cheap and free way to talk to friends at other schools, Skype is one of the easiest video chat clients to use. It’s also a way to phone-ify your computer so you don’t have to wory about an annoying cell phone bill.

You have an abundance of choices for streaming music on your computer, but we’re fans of Spotify for its massive collection of songs, and its free radio apps on mobile. Plus, student’s get a discount on the premium subscription, so you can stream to all your devices for just $5.

Working late on an assignment and tired of the brightness of your screen? F.lux changes the color temperature of your monitor based on the time of day. As the sun sets, your screen turns a slightly orange tint. This should help you get a better night of sleep and reduce eyestrain on for those all-nighters.